Jackals
by OrbitZero
Summary: What happens to the man who is given a brief glimpse of the past life of his soul?


A silly little one-shot concerning the possibility of a reincarnation of Ryan Kuhn being confronted by the horrors of his past life. Kind of ridiculous, I know, but meh. I've always imagined Ryan Kuhn as being English, not American, which is why the bit about the accent is relevant. Rating for cursing and a brief description of gore.

Jackals

I couldn't shake it-the feeling that something within me was going terribly, terribly wrong. Yeah, how fucking melodramatic, right? But it's the only way I can put it. Like something in me is twisting and changing and, well, I don't know what to do about it.

It started with the whispers. The tiniest, barely audible whispers. I couldn't understand what was being said. I think that might make it a little more bearable, actually. I probably wouldn't want to hear what was being said, anyway.

Then came this bizarre fear of the dark. I'm twenty-one years old for fuck's sake, I've got no excuse for such childish behaviour. But any time I turned the light out to go to sleep, it was like I started panicking. My thoughts raced with imaginings of what might be in that dark room, or that I'd been abandoned and left in it forever. So of course, this always ended in me running to my lightswitch and sleeping with the light and television on. Jesus Christ.

But the worst of it all were the urges. Those horrible fucking urges to harm someone, anyone, even myself, when it got bad enough. The most fundamental of human instincts-the preservation of the self-thrown out the window all because I desperately needed to see something bleed, and be the one to make it happen. What a joke. I was just lucky I wasn't stupid enough to act on these twisted desires. I got closer and closer every time, especially when one of my female friends was around. Last time I'd almost slipped up and done it.

I was walking behind her as we were coming down the stairs in her home. She was yammering on about something-who the fuck knows, I don't listen too much to the bitch.

Christ. Again, the extreme misogyny. I didn't used to be like that! I swear to Christ I didn't!

She was ahead of me, and I felt the urge to grab her by the hair and-_allwhoresdeservedeath-_slam her face into the white wall repeatedly. I saw it in my head, brief flashes as I wrapped her brown hair around my hand, gripped her skull, then pounded it into the wall, staining the clean white with splatters of blood. I'd snapped out of it, suddenly feigning illness to get the fuck away from her before I killed someone. I hadn't talked to her since.

I tried to stop thinking about this shit. I thought, maybe if I don't dwell on it, it'll just go away. Maybe everybody goes through weird phases, right? But it's been several months since it all started. How long does shit like this usually last?

I definitely tried to keep it under wraps as I sat at the card table with my friends, Jake, Mark, and Toby. We were playing cards. We generally did that every weekend. Needless to say, I'd been a bit out of it lately, and wasn't as focused on the game as usual. It always ended in my losing a bunch of money, so they weren't exactly going to be too worried about my state of mind when they were raking in that sort of cash.

I tapped my foot rapidly, staring at my cards absently. I hadn't even registered what I had yet when Jake leaned against the table, saying, "Uh...Ryan, we gonna call or...?"

I jerked backwards, flicking my eyes from him to my cards. I didn't have shit, but whatever. "Yeah, sure."

Toby laid his cards down, grinning. I didn't look to see what he had, but the groans from Mark and Jake told me all I needed to know, so I tossed my chips to him. I knocked back another beer before checking out the new hand I'd been dealt.

"You're doing pretty terrible man," Toby said with a grin.

"Yeah, dude, no offense, but if I were you, I wouldn't play cards with us anymore," Mark said, slapping my shoulder-_riphisfuckingarmoff_-and grinning like a dog.

I faked a smile as best as I could. "Everyone's got their streaks, I suppose," I replied in an unintentional(and impeccable) English accent that I'd never spoken in before in my life. Immediately I sat up straight, eyes flying open. I can't fake accents to save my life. How the hell had that just come out of my mouth?

The other three stared at me for a few seconds before bursting out into laughter. "Wot's all this then!" Jake said, mocking me.

"Wotever you say, govna!" Mark said, following suit.

I tried to laugh along with them, but was too startled by what had just happened to say anything else. I downed the rest of the beer. "I-I gotta go to the bathroom," I said, standing up and heading to it.

"I think they call it the loo over there, dude!" Toby called.

I slammed the door shut behind me, leaning back against it. I paced in the tiny room for a second-_trappedforevergetoutgetout_-before stopping in front of the sink. I looked down in the bowl, turned on the water, and cupped my hand beneath the cool stream. The water felt refreshing on my heated face. I took another handful, thinking things were starting to feel a little better. Maybe I was getting over it. Yeah, I felt a lot calmer. A lot more relaxed.

I looked at myself in the mirror-

"Jesus Christ!" I shrieked, backing against the wall. My breathing quickened as I stared at the...thing that was there instead of me. I heard laughter-high, crazed laughter-echo throughout the bathroom. "What the fuck are you?!"

It looked like me. A lot like me. Right down to the just-under-too-wide nose, big, intense steel grey eyes and jet black hair. Only his skin was grey and waxy like a corpse, his hair brittle and strawlike and way too fucking long. He exposed a disgusting mouthful of sharp, rotted teeth, having seemingly chewed his own lips away to the point where they wouldn't cover his mouth anymore. But that didn't stop him from howling with laughter like a maniac.

His face was marred with gashes. And oh yeah, his head was encased in a _fucking metal cage_! I inched towards the door, the mirror-thing watching as my hand headed for the knob. Suddenly, the thing's arm shot out of the mirror, grabbing me by wrist. "Shit!" I screeched. "Oh fuck, no!"

On impulse, I slammed my fist into the glass right where its nose was, and the mirror shattered. My hand was cut open, gushing blood. So much god damned blood. I panted, collapsing to the floor littered in glass shards. I looked down at them.

He still looked back.

--

It was something tragic, the loss of a young life full of promise and prospect. No one had expected suicide out of their friend Ryan, who'd always been such a nice, charming kid. He was smart, a hard-worker, but still knew how to let loose and be relaxed when it was appropriate. No one ever saw him get mad, no one ever saw him get sad, no one ever noticed anything from him other than the happiness he always seemed to project when he was near others.

His three friends found him that evening in the bathroom, laying dead on the floor among the bloodied shards of what had been a mirror. It was a gory sight to behold. He'd gouged out his own eyes, slit his own throat, and slashed open his abdomen _thirty times_ before succumbing to exsanguination. His friends said they heard the mirror break, but couldn't get into the bathroom on time to stop the young man from bleeding to death. By the time they got in the room, he was still convulsing, screaming incoherently about jackals, that his body held the Devil's spirit, and that he was destined for depravity and insanity.

Truly a tragedy, indeed.


End file.
